I don’t know why Republicans hate President Obama, but I have my suspicions. Even though I am a forty year registered Republican, I can’t figure this new angry and apparently bloodthirsty crowd out there. I was hoping you knew why they hate Obama. Are there any Republicans out there who hate Obama and can tell us why?
I kinda like the guy. His Republican presidential challenger, John McCain, who was my hero in 2000, until that corpulent nerd, Carl Rove, smooshed poor John like grapes in a wine tub, even said Obama was a nice guy. I’ll bet he got twenty lashes and a thousand Republican demerits for that.

Let’s face it, on inauguration day Obama was handed a truckload full of special Bush/Republican grown lemons and damned if the Republican congress won’t let him make lemonade with them. What a pickle. Then we (not me personally) made it worse in 2010 by handing him a Tea Party controlled House. Have you ever noticed that tea rhymes with…never mind.
Back to the hateful Republicans. The easy answer is because Obama’s black. That certainly might be the case with many republicans. Those who would probably have been slave owners in the ‘good ole days’—and probably would still be, if it wasn’t for that dratted turncoat Republican, Abraham Lincoln.

No, it’s more than being black. Maybe, it’s being smart. And getting Osama bin Laden and Muammar Khadafi, didn’t help his popularity with the petulant ones either. Maybe, they’re afraid he’ll show the country what a fraud the Bush years were. They were you know. After getting handed a two hundred and fifty billion dollar budget surplus from Clinton, Bush started two, ten year trillion dollar plus wars and that was just for starters. Then he played Santa Claus twice for the Rich and Famous with tax cuts totaling one point four trillion dollars. Somewhere in there he added a trillion dollar prescription drug benefit, which is nothing but welfare for Big Pharma and passed the No Child Left Behind bill, which every teacher in the country hates and has caused widespread cheating on test scores.
After all that he handed Barack Obama an economy that was hemorrhaging three quarters of a million jobs a month and a one point two trillion dollar budget shortfall in his first year as president, the first of several humongous budget shortfalls that can be traced back mostly to the foundering Bush economy programs and efforts to counter the recession. Boy, I’ll bet Bush was happy to leave it all to the next guy—the Republican designated fall guy.
Shush, the Republicans say. Don’t ever mention that. Never mention that TARP was started under Bush as well as the Detroit auto bail-out. Instead, harp on the overwhelming debt and how we desperately need to cut spending. Let the gullible and uninformed public think this all came about one minute after Barck Hussien Obama, that uppity, mixed race, usurper, who was born anywhere but in the U.S., was sworn in as president. Even those who know better will eventually forget and begin to blame Obama for the country’s woes. For not getting the country out of the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression.

And they are. Frustration and hardship have caused Obama’s poll numbers to drop, endangering his re-election, and that is really scary. Can you imagine where we will be if any of the Republican bimbos who are running right now end up being President?

Be careful America. With this brand of Republican’s help, you may yet get what you think you wished for, and it ain’t pretty.

Something that’s always bothered me is that the answers to some of the country’s and yes the world’s, most intractable and daunting problems are not so daunting if you apply a little common sense.
Take health care. Everybody, even Republican legislators agree health care costs are skyrocketing out of control. For example health care costs in the nineties constituted six percent (6%) of the economy. Today health care accounts for almost three times that, seventeen percent (17%). It you don’t think this is a serious problem, I have a bridge I’ll sell you. That is if the Wall Street Bankers haven’t already sold it to you.

If costs are not brought under control, and soon, predictions of 25 to 33% of our economy will go for health care, yet partisan bickering continues while America burns. C’mon guys, give us something. We know you can do it—can’t you? I used to think the previous administration was like the Keystone Cops in their inept pursuit of war and oil, but today’s congress really is like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

How do we get them together on heath care? It’s not so hard. Simply take away their health care away until they give the country effective bi-partisan health care reform.
Are there other simple answers out there? Sure why not. If some banks are too big to fail, simply yank out all your money and stop dealing with them. If everyone did this I guaranty they would get smaller—a lot smaller. Personally, I believe that everyone who lost a job, source of income or who’s net worth was seriously depleted should get one of those bonuses and I’m one of them. They seem to have plenty of money to go around. After all, three of these pillars of society recently announced they were giving thirty-four BILLION in bonuses to their employees. For those of you who are mathematically challenged that sum could make thirty four thousand employees, MILLIONAIRES.
Isn’t life grand?

Do you think internet pornography and gaming are a problem? I do. It seems like people would rather send their money to gamblers and pornographers than pay taxes. What’s the answer? Sin tax. Simply tax the shit…I mean hell out of them. That’s a tax even the republicans could love. Yes many if not all of them are based outside the U.S.. Simply cut them off at the border and if that’s not possible, change the tax laws and make any income derived from within our borders subject to U.S. income tax laws.
See how easy it is? How about rampant alcohol consumption. Surely you’ve noticed liquor and wine supermarkets popping up everywhere and if you think about it, the liquor section in your supermarket has grown to about twenty percent or more of the store’s entire display area.
Then there’s the prescription drug epidemic. Billions and billions of dollars are spent every year on legalized drugs, most of which are bad for the people that take them. Why? Because we are a drug culture. For our whole lives we’ve been led to believe the doctors know best and drugs are the answer to everything. And once started, people seldom get off, nor do they think they should.

I’ll bet now that I’ve showed you how you could come up with some simple solutions to the countries problems, you could solve our drug and alcohol addictions. Think about it. I’d like to hear from you.
On top of everything else, there’s an obesity epidemic which contributes to the zooming health care costs and the ubiquitous climate change problem.
You know, the climate change problem may actually be the answer to all our problems. Simply put all the climate change deniers (mostly republicans but some independents) in charge and in a hundred years or so, none of us will ever have to worry about anything ever again.

Now if any of you are interested in my writing allow me to present a couple new books I’m proud of
Fortune Cookie Magic

Meeting for lunch at a Chinese restaurant, Jill’s friends are shocked by the improbable, amazing tale of good fortune she spins. Lust, sex, love, pregnancy, and a planned marriage to a strapping young hunk, all from eating a red fortune cookie? A FORTUNE COOKIE? Give me a break!

The owner of the Chinese restaurant sets one of the miracle red fortune cookies in front of each of Jill’s friends. Gail, the hi-powered attorney, Rita, the gorgeous model, and Saundra, the uppity socialite, look at each other, then at Chad, Jill’s dreamboat fiancée. What should they do? What would you do?

Fortune Cookies is a deliciously naughty, whimsical, tongue in cheek, romantic story that leads four friends on a paranormal journey into the supernatural in search of love, fulfillment and happiness. It is a novel for couples, about couples. Erotic and funny, Fortune Cookies will send you searching Chinese restaurants for the elusive red fortune cookie!

After winning an all expenses paid Hawaiian vacation for two from a local radio station, Jessica and her younger sister, Gloria, head to Honolulu with high expectations. Jessie meets and hits it off with a man who happens to live in the LA area, where she’s from and is suddenly looking forward to returning to LA.

Gloria, a showroom dancer in Las Vegas hotel, also meets a man, Kino, a Hawaiian hunk,who is renowned for his lothario like exploits. Just when she’s resolved to sharing his companyas a summer vacation romance only, she discovers they have something compelling in common.

Is there romance after vacation with this Hawaiian godlike incarnation?

Hi everyone, It’s that time of the month again and I’m buried in deadlines and edits so I asked a friend of mine, Bobby Bright, to write a guest blog for me. He’s quite opinionated so if he steps on anyone’s toes, I’m sorry,

Hello all you wonderful people, I’m Bobbi Bright, standing in for Dee. I promised Dee I wouldn’t write about religion so I’m going to write about the next best thing. The most devious, misleading, intolerant, self serving, organized group in America today—Republicans. No, not the stupid rank and file republicans who voted the worst president in history, George Dubya, into office twice. They’re just dupes, pawns of the nefarious, so called, brains of the party. As Dubya, the titular head of the party, rode off into the sunset in disgrace after eight years of chaos, and self-destruction; who’s should assume the mantel of spokesman for republican party, but that tower of mis-information, the man Al Frankin called ‘that Big Fat Liar,’ Rush Limbaugh. And how about Sarah Palin? Does the word bimbo comes to mind for you too?

Just for the record, I know there are some good, big-hearted people in the republican tent, my friend Dee is one, though he claims to be an independent, having left the party in the nineties for philosophical reasons. I’d like to direct a question to the ordinary republicans, the ones who got swift-boated or scared into voting for George W. Bush. If you make under a hundred thousand dollars a year, wtf are you doing in the ‘me first’ party. Are you crazy? Do you think this party is going to raise you into prosperity?

Enough about republicans in general. This vent is more about ignorant, arrogant people who think they can twist, turn and rework a kernel of truth to their advantage. Republican strategists love to blow a little point up into a big point while ignoring comparable larger points that might lead to them. Health Care is a prime example. How many times have you heard these pretend paradigms of fiscal responsibility harp about the trillion dollar health care program. Folks that’s a trillion dollars of which four hundred billion is accounted for over ten years. That’s sixty billion dollars a year for a program that will help all Americans. Not unappreciative Iraqis, not Afghans, but Americans. For those who don’t know, the hard costs of the useless Bush war of choice is almost double the health care cost at one hundred ten billion a year.
That’s what gets my blood boiling. These hypocritical savers of our purse strings are blowing two billion dollars a week in a foreign war that has killed or maimed forty thousand of our youth while bemoaning a two billion dollar cash for clunker program that will help consumers, car dealers, auto manufacturers, the economy, banks, cut oil dependence and toxic emissions. And you want to know something? Estimates show the Bush war will ultimately cost three trillion in ancillary costs. That’s three billion, million folks. I could go on and on, but I keep getting off the point.

Republican leadership seldom does anything on principal. Mostly, they work for advantage. They see people with a different point of view as the enemy and when they think the enemy is vulnerable they strike. To them, the uppity black man from Illinois is the enemy and as worthy a goal as it might be, they see Health care as his Achilles heel—and they’re going for the jugular.

These wild under informed people showing up at August town hall meetings across the country at the urging of right wing blogs and commentators are an example. The misinformation they are disseminating to this hapless group is despicable. Outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care are being purposely spread alongside equally ridiculous claims that Obama is a Muslim, and was really born in Kenya instead of Hawaii.

I’m patiently waiting for the day when a major republican politician stands up and admits that recent Republican policies have been disastrous. Policies that cost the country three trillion dollars on an useless war, brought the country to the edge of ruination by failing to monitor rampant greed, thereby costing the taxpayers two trillion in remedial programs and ultimately cost the taxpayers eleven trillion in lost net worth.

It appears as if the Republican Party is on its way to massive losses in a few weeks, and based on the spectacle of what has now come to constitute a McPain-Palin Bloodlust rally, it justifiably couldn’t happen to a more despicable lot of characters.

Drowning in a sea of flop sweat, McPain and Palin have now resorted to the ugliest kind of campaigning. Their rallies are over-the-top hatefests set to inflame and rabble-rouse. They certainly have the rabble all right, and they certainly are prone to rousing.

Never mind that the only way McCain could ever pull this out was by attracting Independents. Now he simply takes refuge in fanning the hatred amongst the base, making the wildest of charges against Obama and throwing a series of rallies just short of lynching parties.

These malevolent exercises in execration have all the civility of the Brownshirts running amok in Jewish neighborhoods in the 1930s. They have become the stuff of feature stories in national papers.
McPain and Palin have urged the crowd on, and merely smiled and waved as their false charges against Obama have been met with blood-curdling screams of “Kill him!”, “Terrorist!” and “Treason!”.

How long before they start setting Obama afire in effigy?

Some might say it is just the usual rightwing lunatics being the loyal cultists they always have been. That’s the problem. These rallies have become so incendiary, it isn’t hard to imagine one unbalanced lunatic taking it upon himself to eliminate the problem. The problem being Obama.

Just in the past six months we have seen two prime examples of the legacy of rightwing hatred, not to mention talk radio. First we had the cultist who worked himself into such a rage in Tennessee that, in his own words, since he couldn’t get to any “liberals” in positions of power, he decided to simply go to a Unitarian church where a children’s play was in progress, and put his shotgun to use on a few local progressives.

After all, if they had been Republicans, if they had been real Americans, they would have been at a real church, not the Unitarian variety. By the time he was done exercising his First and Second Amendment rights, two innocents were dead and two more wounded. Police found his library consisted of books by Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

This was followed by the fellow who became so angry at “liberals” that, the price of gas being what it is, he simply drove to the headquarters of the Democratic Party Headquarters in Arkansas and shot the party chairman dead. Never had met him, didn’t know him from Adam. He was a Democrat and that was reason enough to end his life.

Look at some of the faces of rage at these McPain-Palin hatefests and ask yourself who next will be on a mission to deliver justice to “that one” .

Back in the day I remember attending a debate where a Republican mocked the Democratic representative asking him if Michael Dukakis was really the best the Dems could do.

The Democrat debater, paused, a pained look crossed his face, and then he stated, “probably not”. He went on to note that much of the best had been eliminated not by ballot but by Smith & Wesson.

He went on to note that JFK, Medger Evers, Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Allard Lowenstein, George Moscone, Harvey Milk and others all may have presented a better effort if they had been allowed to live to give it a try.

When was the last time a NeoCon was murdered for his beliefs. Not just last time, any time? What does that tell you?

What irresponsible and criminal behavior the McPain camp is engaging in right now. It is akin to yelling fire in a crowded venue. It even led lifetime Republican and Bush speechwriter David Frum to note:

“Those who press this…line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for the next president, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting…A big part of Obama’s appeal is his self-command. It’s a genuinely impressive quality. Let’s emulate it. We’ll be needing it.”

And now even Cindy McCain has turned into an insulting hissing piss-bull. Hey Blondie, it’s bad enough that you never leave John-Boy’s side, as if you’re his service dog, or at least his assisted-living attendant, but the last thing the country needs is hearing from the beer baroness constituency.

This is all tied into a larger picture I have discussed here lately. The Republican party’s attempt at dumbing down America. How perfect that they recruited Sarah Palin as part of the effort. The woman who can’t remember the name of one magazine or newspaper she reads.

It is extraordinary that the GOP has spent the past eight years trying to make “elite” a pejorative. Only when the head of your party is dumber than a bag of rocks (Is our children learning?) do you have a vested interest in making stupid-good, smart-bad.

The elite used to signify the best the country has to offer. The Elite Eight in the NCAA basketball tournament. The Navy Seals…elite. The Blue Angels…elite. Advanced learning classes…elite. Magna (inappropriate term) laude…elite.

But the Orwellian newspeak folks that allow the environment to be ravaged under the (no laughing) “Clean Skies Initiative”, are simply up to their tricks as usual.

When your party has been exposed as ideologically bankrupt, criminally incompetent and often immoral, the best you can do is try and put lipstick on the pig.

Just like Chairman Mao’s indoctrination classes. Re-educate the populace to think that learning is an evil, that education is corrosive, that using the full capacity of your mind is intellectualism, a taint to be avoided at all costs. Thinking will just get you into trouble.

That’s why even conservative columnist David Brooks, whom has been in the tank for John-Boy and Sarah since the get-go has seen enough. Said Brooks on Wednesday:

“Sarah Palin represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley…He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I’m afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.”

A “top level Republican party official wrote Jay Carney of Time Magazine last week regarding this trend as it relates to Palin and noted:

“She really is what Bush pretends to be — she ‘s a true anti-intellectual. We don’t need to read or even learn because that just fills our heads with confusing ideas and facts and figures. We feel. Bush plays at this anti-elite stuff but he’s Harvard/Yale/Andover, all of that. She is really a celebration of a glorious know-nothingness that is truly dangerous. She’s terrifying and represents a streak of the Republican party that is a permanent minority. It’s not that she is an idiot that bothers me. It’s that she celebrates non-learning and anti-knowledge. She celebrates ignorance. Terrifying.”

Said Joe Klein of Time Magazine:

“But seriously, folks, I’m beginning to worry about the level of craziness on the Republican side, the over-the-top, stampede-the-crowd statements by everyone from McCain on down, the vehemence of the crowds that McCain and Palin are drawing with people shouting “Kill him” and “He’s a terrorist” and “Off with his head.”

“Watch the tape of the guy screaming, “He’s a terrorist!” McCain seems to shudder at that, he rolls his eyes… and I thought for a moment he’d admonish the man. But he didn’t. Yes, yes, it’s all he has. True enough: he no longer has his honor. But we are on the edge of some real serious craziness here and it would be nice if McCain did the right thing and told his more bloodthirsty supporters to go home and take a cold shower. But McCain hasn’t done the right thing all year. His campaign is appalling, as the Times editorial board said today–and more, it is a national disgrace.”

Said conservative columnist George Will:

“Time was, the Baltimore Orioles manager was Earl Weaver, a short, irascible, Napoleonic figure who, when cranky, as he frequently was, would shout at an umpire, “Are you going to get any better or is this it?“…that is the question about John McCain’s campaign…the McCain-Palin campaign’s attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama’s Chicago associations seem surreal — or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, “like being savaged by a dead sheep.”

Said conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan:

“I’ve come to the sad conclusion that McCain’s brand was just that. His real core is about power and ambition, divorced, when necessary, from principle or patriotism. You learn who people really are when they are asked to do the right thing when it might hurt them, not when it helps them anyway. We just learned something that has always been true about McCain. It isn’t pretty.”

It is ironic, but so typical that John McCain, the man who falsely presents himself as Mr. Bipartisan, Mr. Work-Across-The-Aisles will have done such a criminally irresponsible job of dividing the country, inflaming petty hatreds and potentially inciting violence, when President Obama takes over.

As one columnist pondered, “Sometimes, I try to imagine what it will be like for John McCain when this campaign is over, and he realizes how completely he has destroyed his character and his honor. I cannot imagine that it will seem worth it come December.”

As that aforementioned Times editorial noted (and keep in mind they endorsed McCain over all his other rivals):

“Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember. They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia.

(Palin’s) demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew.

We certainly expected better from Mr. McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics. He was driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by this sort of smear, orchestrated by some of the same people who are now running his campaign.

In a way, we should not be surprised that Mr. McCain has stooped so low, since the debate showed once again that he has little else to talk about. But surely, Mr. McCain and his team can come up with a better answer to (our) problems than inciting more division, anger and hatred.”

It seems appropriate that McCain addressed a crowd the other day by calling them “my fellow prisoners”. Fact of the matter is, he is still in that bamboo cage. The fact that he has been re-fighting the Vietnam War ever since is proof. He left physically but never arrived home.

We liked to think he hadn’t been broken by his captors. Now we know better.

I was glad Sarah Palin didn’t fall flat on her face Thursday night. I was glad for her and glad for all you ‘Joe Six Packs’ out there who find yourself enamored with the lady. Heck, I think she’s kinda neat myself. Let’s get something straight. I don’t dislike Sarah Palin. She’s just not ready for prime time.

I won’t go into the liteny of problems that bother me about Mrs’ Palin. I’ve discussed them previously. Instead I’ll talk about new things that bother me and please keep an open mind.
Sarah is lovely, charismatic, reasonably smart (probably more than McCain or Bush) ambitious, courageous a bit unique and confident. Boy is she confident. There’s a good chance she’s like the untouchable girl you had a crush on in grammar school. But, and here’s the problem, is she ready to be president? As much as we don’t like to think about it, there’s a three in ten chance she would have to finish off McCain’s term. Hopefully she would have time to grow into the job, but there’s no guarantees. Then again maybe the job is over her head. Based on the debate and interviews it was.

Really. honestly, grab another beer and calm down. The fact is Sarah Palin answered fewer questions than she passed on and recited Republican talking points on the ones she did. If you don’t believe me read the transcript. While she was trying to woo the viewing audience with all her folksy colloquialisms, sandwiched between gollys and gee wiz’s as she cocked her head and winked, she really said very little. Think about . If you’re honest, you’ll admit it. Yes, her presentation was adorable. I just don’t see her sitting down with Mahmoud or Vladimir and saying “C’mon Mahmoud, darn we just can’t look back at what the Shah did. What’s a Shah, anyway?” Or. “Gosh Vlad, you’ve been getting a little too feisty for your own good. You do know I used to be the Governor of Alaska and know all about Russia. If you don’t shape up, when we finally get our troops out of Eye-Rack, we’ll have us a game of Russian roulette.”
Okay, if you’re wondering what the point is, here it is. I think you’ll agree that the next President will have a daunting job before him. Maybe more overwhelming than what Roosevelt or Lincoln faced. It may be the most frightening job ever for a President and I sure know I wouldn’t want it. But I do want something and you should too. You should want the smartest person running for President to be elected. It will take a genius to get us out of the mess that Dubya and the Keystone Cops got us into. And the closest candidate is Obama. He is a brilliant man who graduated from Harvard with honors (McCain was third from the bottom in his Annapolis class) and with the selection of Biden he displayed a propensity for pragmatism. Because of that, unlike Bush, I suspect he will surround himself with the best people he can find.
All right. I know some of you can’t bring yourselves to vote for a Black man. Whatever the reason, you must get past this. You can’t punish the country for your hang ups. Besides, he’s white too. He was raised by his lily white grandparents. Isn’t a great way to move into a minority presidency. A man who has his feet in both societies.
America goofed when we elected G.W.Bush, really bad. Like millions of others it cost me dearly. More than I care to discuss.
Let’s not goof again!

Scratching my head, I think, If Osama bin Laden, who is directly responsible for the death of three thousand innocent American citizens and all the NATO & Afghan soldiers in Afghanistan and with Bush’s help, forty some thousand dead and maimed in Iraq and is America’s public enemy number one, is pinpointed in Pakistan where everyone knows he is, why the eff not go get him?

Just who is the real warrior here? Barack Obama? He’s the guy with the brains. Joe Biden? He’s the guy with the experience. Sarah Palin? She’s got moxy. (but not my vote)

There’s a saying I occasionally hear that goes something like this: Republicans are great at running campaigns and winning elections, but after they win, they don’t know how to govern.

Taking a hard look over the last eight years only adds to the credibility of the saying. Yes, the Republicans won two hard fought elections, which were followed by what could easily be described as eight years of chaos.

This Republican led stewardship of the country has led us to the precipice of collapse. The Bush administration has us on the brink of a depression reminiscent of the Republican led depression of 1928.

Has the gross malfeasance of the last eight years given the Far Right pause? Have they discovered contrition? Do they finally understand that the government works better with an intelligent President and legislators? Do they now realize that cronyism instead of qualified appointments can backfire. Is it now apparent to them that the overall health of the country trumps pet issues like gay marriage and right to life? After all what does it gain them to make abortion illegal if they loose their country?

I once read that Osama bin Laden’s plan for America isn’t to destroy us overtly with invasion or attacks. That would be well beyond their abilities. His plan is to destroy us financially from within. Given our current situation I’d say his plan is working with the help of our President and Wall Street.

So the question is, do we dare give the Republicans four more years? Four more years that could actually push us over the cliff.

Hint: If you’re interested in saving this country, elect the most intelligent candidate.